Friday, August 13, 2004
Bush Considering Thomas for Chief Justice(?)
Reason #756 to get rid of Bush et al. The Chicago Sun Times (ANNE GEARAN) notes the book that is available to all. Where’s the rest of the media?
Clarence Thomas has been interviewed by White House lawyers as a possible choice to be the next chief justice of the United States, says the author of a new biography.
Thomas says he isn't interested but could find it hard to turn down an opportunity to be the first black man to lead the Supreme Court, said biographer Ken Foskett.
Judging Thomas, out this week from William Morrow, traces Thomas' life from rough beginnings in rural Georgia, through Yale Law School to his life now.
Thomas initially refused Foskett's request for interviews but later spoke to the author on and off the record.
Thomas likes NASCAR and football, plays a fierce game of basketball and during the court's summer recess tours the nation in a 40-foot mobile home decorated with orange flames, Foskett wrote.
Thomas is friendly and outgoing in person, though he almost never says a word during the court's oral arguments and is considered among the most private of the nine justices, Foskett said. http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi
Goss- Follow-up
The Democrats again won’t contest the nomination. Too afraid of being tarred with the ‘They’re hurting the war on terror!’ line.
Admiral Stansfield Turner said the commonplace, “The President was motivated to nominate Goss in order to improve his electoral chances.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54483-2004Aug10.html
Indeed. And, Goss would help in a second term, if there were investigations proceeding. Then again, if Bush is re-elected, if the Repubs continue to hold Congress, there won’t be any such investigations.
And, there is the outtake from “Fahrenheit 9/11” in which Goss says that he’s not qualified for a CIA job. Hasn’t ole Porter heard of the Peter Principle?
I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified. I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably. And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day, 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.’ Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have. http://www.mattgunn.com/cantgetciajob081104
Al-Qaeda and the Elections:
Although Bush has been bin Laden’s chief recruiter, the Repubs are continually pushing the notion that terrorists everywhere want “anyone but Bush.” So, this Yahoo story:
Al-Qaeda is reportedly planning a high-level assassination against a US or foreign leader to disrupt the US presidential election, that will be set in motion by a new tape from its leader Osama bin Laden.
"The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the US economy and to undermine the US election," an intelligence official said, referring to the November 2 presidential election pitting Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry.
"The view of Al-Qaeda is 'anybody but Bush,'" said the official. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040811/wl_afp/us_attacks_qaeda_040811151811
Al-Qaeda and Prescription Drugs: Huh?
"Cues from chatter" gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford says.
....Crawford said the possibility of such an attack was the most serious of his concerns about the increase in states and municipalities trying to import drugs from Canada to save money.
Oh, so that’s why the Medicare bill prohibited the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. Got it!
All security, all the time. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/08/12/fda.terror.ap/index.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Fighting, not fighting, fighting. Casualties. And, fading news coverage. Not surprising. It’s old news! They have a ‘government’!
Still, considered as a whole from July 1 to the present, coverage of Iraq seems to have diminished. "It's incredible how the press has veered away from Iraq" since June 28, says Peter Singer, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution. Last week "six U.S. soldiers were killed in 24 hours, and there was nothing. If you're President Bush and you see headlines about Martha Stewart and Laci Peterson, you've got to count yourself lucky, because that means the focus is no longer on Iraq."
The physical danger reporters face inside Iraq has clearly curbed their efforts to report more. And for editors and producers back in America, trying to find a way to make the repetitive nature of the events in Iraq compelling remains a challenge. "One can imagine editors saying, 'Gee, we just did a roadside bombing story yesterday,'" says Singer. "But that's how an insurgency works; it's the same attack over and over."
That fatigue among members of the press corps makes it less likely that the daily violence in Iraq will be considered newsworthy. "I covered the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August of 2003, and that was a shock," says Ken Dilanian, a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer who has spent several months reporting from Iraq in the past year. "As I recall, CNN broke into its regular programming live and stayed with it all day. That was with 24 people dead. Nowadays that happens every week, and it's on Page A14." http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/12/iraq_press/print.html
Nader’s Fault:
He may be having trouble getting on the ballot, but if Kerry loses, it must be Nader’s fault. In fact, Ralph must have made Kerry say that he still would have voted to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq knowing that it posed no threat to the American people. The very least Nader should do is to clarify and defend Kerry’s position and remind voters that it doesn’t matter if both parties now officially stand for preemptive invasions of small, non-threatening nations.
Our Canadian friends weigh in:
This amounts to a sweeping claim by Kerry that America has carte blanche to make war on even bogus grounds, and in defiance of the United Nations and world opinion, so long as the war is waged effectively.
It's depressing from a candidate who has attacked Bush for "misleading" the nation, who promises a better direction and who claims to want to re-engage with the world.
Kerry's vote in 2002, while misguided, was defensible. Bush had exaggerated Saddam's threat, and had won over 7 in 10 Americans to the view that the Iraq war was justified.
But since then, the U.N. has been vindicated. Saddam was contained; there were no ties to the 9/11 terrorists; and Iraq had no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
That leaves most Americans feeling misled, or duped. They can see the damage to U.S. prestige internationally. The loss of more than 1,000 American and allied lives, and 16,000 Iraqi lives . A $200-billion cost.
And they see no easy exit.
All this is baggage Bush should carry to the polls, alone. But Kerry has just re-endorsed his misguided policy, if not its clumsy delivery. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1092175810357&call_pageid=968256290204
Swift Boat Ads.
New polls among independents reportedly show that doubts are being raised by the attack ads. So, we’re getting many more of such.
Credit where credit’s due: Houston builder Bob J. Perry gave the group $100,000, accounting for the bulk of the $158,000 in receipts it has reported.
A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots.
The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation
Another ad attacks Teresa Heinz Kerry, who, at the Democratic convention last month cited her birth and upbringing in Mozambique and who has described herself as African American. In the radio commercial, the announcer says: "His wife says she's an African American. While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants, qualifies."
The Kerry campaign denounced the ads, all of which are being aired on radio stations with largely black audiences. "It's disgusting that the president's political allies are now using race as a political weapon," said Bill Lynch, deputy manager of the Kerry campaign. "First a group of right-wing Swift boat veterans began smearing John Kerry's military service, and now another group has resorted to playing racial politics." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58006-2004Aug11.html
Republicans Look at the Bright Side of A Bush Loss
Effective organizers, they are. John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge for the Christian Science Monitor report on the Right’s thinking.
In 1976, many conservatives saw the trouncing of the moderate Gerald Ford as a way of clearing the path for the ideologically pure Ronald Reagan in 1980. George H.W. Bush's 1992 defeat provoked celebration not just in Clintonite Little Rock but also in some corners of conservative America. "Oh,yeah, man, it was fabulous," recalled Tom DeLay, the hard-line Texas congressman, who'd feared another "four years of misery" fighting the urge to cross his party's too-liberal leader. At the Heritage Foundation, a group of right-wingers called the Third Generation conducted a bizarre rite involving a plastic head of the deposed Bush on a platter.
There is no chance that Republicans would welcome the son's defeat in the same way they rejoiced at the father's. George W. is much more conservative than George H.W., and he has gone out of his way to throw red meat to each faction of the right: tax cuts for the antigovernment conservatives, opposition to gay marriage and general abortion rights for the social conservatives, and the invasion of Iraq for the neoconservatives. Still, there are good reasons that, in a few years, some on the right might look on a John Kerry victory as a blessing in disguise.
First, President Bush hasn't been as conservative as some would like. Small-government types fume that he has increased discretionary government spending faster than Bill Clinton. Buchananite paleoconservatives, libertarians, and Nelson Rockefeller-style internationalists are all furious - for very different reasons - about Bush's "war of choice" in Iraq. Even some neocons are irritated by his conduct of that war - particularly his failure to supply enough troops to make the enterprise work.
A second reason conservatives might cheer a Bush defeat is to achieve a foreign-policy victory. The Bush foreign-policy team hardly lacks experience, but its reputation has been tainted - by infighting, bungling in Iraq, and the rows with Europe. For better or worse, many conservatives may conclude that Senator Kerry, who has accepted most of the tenets of Bush's policy of preemption, stands a better chance than Bush of increasing international involvement in Iraq, winning support for Washington's general war on terror, and even forcing UN reform. After all, could Jacques, Gerhard, and the rest of those wimpy Continentals say no to a man who speaks fluent French and German and has just rid the world of the Toxic Texan?
The third reason for the right to celebrate a Bush loss comes in one simple word: gridlock. Gridlock is a godsend to some conservatives - a proven way to stop government spending. A Kerry administration is much more likely to be gridlocked than a second Bush administration because the Republicans look sure to hang on to the House and have a better-than-even chance of keeping control of the Senate.
A fourth reason has to do with regeneration. Some conservatives think the Republican Party - and the wider conservative movement - needs to rediscover its identity. Is it a "small government" party, or does "big government conservatism" make sense? Is it the party of big business or of free markets? Under Bush, Western antigovernment conservatives have generally lost ground to Southern social conservatives, and pragmatic internationalists have been outmaneuvered by neoconservative idealists. A period of bloodletting might help, returning a stronger party to the fray.
And that is the fifth reason a few conservatives might welcome a November Bush-bashing: the certain belief that they will be back, better than ever, in 2008. The conservative movement has an impressive record of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Ford's demise indeed helped to power the Reagan landslide; "Poppy" Bush's defeat set up the Gingrich revolution. In four years, many conservatives believe, President Kerry could limp to destruction at the hands of somebody like Colorado Gov. Bill Owens. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0812/p09s02-coop.htm
Digging for African Oil: The Competition Heats Up:
The U.S. and France are competing for oil in North and West Africa; most of these regimes are “undemocratic.”
France and the United States have begun a new race to compete for favours with undemocratic regimes in Africa. The competition is growing particularly in the oil- rich North and West Africa. The French government announced last month that it is due to sign a military pact with former colony Algeria that would include weapons and technology transfer, training and intelligence sharing. The agreement was negotiated by French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie on a visit to Algiers July 19. Alliot-Marie, the first French defence minister to visit Algeria since the end of the bloody war of independence in 1962, said the "historic" agreement will "turn a page" in French-Algerian history. Foreign minister Michel Barnier visited Algiers earlier in July to discuss new cooperation. Finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy followed his colleagues later in the month to approve a 2.5 billion dollar aid package. France has invited Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to commemoration of the liberation of south France from Nazi occupation in 1944, in the face of protests from French veterans of the war of independence. Analysts say these moves seek to secure access to Algerian oil and gas resources to counter similar efforts by the U.S. government. http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=25032
Polls: In sum, Gore’s states that are shaky are Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Bush’s 2000 states that are, to varying degrees, ‘up for grabs’ are Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and New Hampshire, the latter (and Florida) currently leaning to Kerry.
But, it’s only August.
Let me put it to you bluntly: In a changing world, we want more people to have control over your own life." -- Bush at an "Ask President Bush" event on August 9.
-R
Reason #756 to get rid of Bush et al. The Chicago Sun Times (ANNE GEARAN) notes the book that is available to all. Where’s the rest of the media?
Clarence Thomas has been interviewed by White House lawyers as a possible choice to be the next chief justice of the United States, says the author of a new biography.
Thomas says he isn't interested but could find it hard to turn down an opportunity to be the first black man to lead the Supreme Court, said biographer Ken Foskett.
Judging Thomas, out this week from William Morrow, traces Thomas' life from rough beginnings in rural Georgia, through Yale Law School to his life now.
Thomas initially refused Foskett's request for interviews but later spoke to the author on and off the record.
Thomas likes NASCAR and football, plays a fierce game of basketball and during the court's summer recess tours the nation in a 40-foot mobile home decorated with orange flames, Foskett wrote.
Thomas is friendly and outgoing in person, though he almost never says a word during the court's oral arguments and is considered among the most private of the nine justices, Foskett said. http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi
Goss- Follow-up
The Democrats again won’t contest the nomination. Too afraid of being tarred with the ‘They’re hurting the war on terror!’ line.
Admiral Stansfield Turner said the commonplace, “The President was motivated to nominate Goss in order to improve his electoral chances.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54483-2004Aug10.html
Indeed. And, Goss would help in a second term, if there were investigations proceeding. Then again, if Bush is re-elected, if the Repubs continue to hold Congress, there won’t be any such investigations.
And, there is the outtake from “Fahrenheit 9/11” in which Goss says that he’s not qualified for a CIA job. Hasn’t ole Porter heard of the Peter Principle?
I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified. I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably. And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day, 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.’ Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have. http://www.mattgunn.com/cantgetciajob081104
Al-Qaeda and the Elections:
Although Bush has been bin Laden’s chief recruiter, the Repubs are continually pushing the notion that terrorists everywhere want “anyone but Bush.” So, this Yahoo story:
Al-Qaeda is reportedly planning a high-level assassination against a US or foreign leader to disrupt the US presidential election, that will be set in motion by a new tape from its leader Osama bin Laden.
"The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the US economy and to undermine the US election," an intelligence official said, referring to the November 2 presidential election pitting Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry.
"The view of Al-Qaeda is 'anybody but Bush,'" said the official. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040811/wl_afp/us_attacks_qaeda_040811151811
Al-Qaeda and Prescription Drugs: Huh?
"Cues from chatter" gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford says.
....Crawford said the possibility of such an attack was the most serious of his concerns about the increase in states and municipalities trying to import drugs from Canada to save money.
Oh, so that’s why the Medicare bill prohibited the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. Got it!
All security, all the time. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/08/12/fda.terror.ap/index.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Fighting, not fighting, fighting. Casualties. And, fading news coverage. Not surprising. It’s old news! They have a ‘government’!
Still, considered as a whole from July 1 to the present, coverage of Iraq seems to have diminished. "It's incredible how the press has veered away from Iraq" since June 28, says Peter Singer, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution. Last week "six U.S. soldiers were killed in 24 hours, and there was nothing. If you're President Bush and you see headlines about Martha Stewart and Laci Peterson, you've got to count yourself lucky, because that means the focus is no longer on Iraq."
The physical danger reporters face inside Iraq has clearly curbed their efforts to report more. And for editors and producers back in America, trying to find a way to make the repetitive nature of the events in Iraq compelling remains a challenge. "One can imagine editors saying, 'Gee, we just did a roadside bombing story yesterday,'" says Singer. "But that's how an insurgency works; it's the same attack over and over."
That fatigue among members of the press corps makes it less likely that the daily violence in Iraq will be considered newsworthy. "I covered the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August of 2003, and that was a shock," says Ken Dilanian, a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer who has spent several months reporting from Iraq in the past year. "As I recall, CNN broke into its regular programming live and stayed with it all day. That was with 24 people dead. Nowadays that happens every week, and it's on Page A14." http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/12/iraq_press/print.html
Nader’s Fault:
He may be having trouble getting on the ballot, but if Kerry loses, it must be Nader’s fault. In fact, Ralph must have made Kerry say that he still would have voted to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq knowing that it posed no threat to the American people. The very least Nader should do is to clarify and defend Kerry’s position and remind voters that it doesn’t matter if both parties now officially stand for preemptive invasions of small, non-threatening nations.
Our Canadian friends weigh in:
This amounts to a sweeping claim by Kerry that America has carte blanche to make war on even bogus grounds, and in defiance of the United Nations and world opinion, so long as the war is waged effectively.
It's depressing from a candidate who has attacked Bush for "misleading" the nation, who promises a better direction and who claims to want to re-engage with the world.
Kerry's vote in 2002, while misguided, was defensible. Bush had exaggerated Saddam's threat, and had won over 7 in 10 Americans to the view that the Iraq war was justified.
But since then, the U.N. has been vindicated. Saddam was contained; there were no ties to the 9/11 terrorists; and Iraq had no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
That leaves most Americans feeling misled, or duped. They can see the damage to U.S. prestige internationally. The loss of more than 1,000 American and allied lives, and 16,000 Iraqi lives . A $200-billion cost.
And they see no easy exit.
All this is baggage Bush should carry to the polls, alone. But Kerry has just re-endorsed his misguided policy, if not its clumsy delivery. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1092175810357&call_pageid=968256290204
Swift Boat Ads.
New polls among independents reportedly show that doubts are being raised by the attack ads. So, we’re getting many more of such.
Credit where credit’s due: Houston builder Bob J. Perry gave the group $100,000, accounting for the bulk of the $158,000 in receipts it has reported.
A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots.
The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation
Another ad attacks Teresa Heinz Kerry, who, at the Democratic convention last month cited her birth and upbringing in Mozambique and who has described herself as African American. In the radio commercial, the announcer says: "His wife says she's an African American. While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants, qualifies."
The Kerry campaign denounced the ads, all of which are being aired on radio stations with largely black audiences. "It's disgusting that the president's political allies are now using race as a political weapon," said Bill Lynch, deputy manager of the Kerry campaign. "First a group of right-wing Swift boat veterans began smearing John Kerry's military service, and now another group has resorted to playing racial politics." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58006-2004Aug11.html
Republicans Look at the Bright Side of A Bush Loss
Effective organizers, they are. John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge for the Christian Science Monitor report on the Right’s thinking.
In 1976, many conservatives saw the trouncing of the moderate Gerald Ford as a way of clearing the path for the ideologically pure Ronald Reagan in 1980. George H.W. Bush's 1992 defeat provoked celebration not just in Clintonite Little Rock but also in some corners of conservative America. "Oh,yeah, man, it was fabulous," recalled Tom DeLay, the hard-line Texas congressman, who'd feared another "four years of misery" fighting the urge to cross his party's too-liberal leader. At the Heritage Foundation, a group of right-wingers called the Third Generation conducted a bizarre rite involving a plastic head of the deposed Bush on a platter.
There is no chance that Republicans would welcome the son's defeat in the same way they rejoiced at the father's. George W. is much more conservative than George H.W., and he has gone out of his way to throw red meat to each faction of the right: tax cuts for the antigovernment conservatives, opposition to gay marriage and general abortion rights for the social conservatives, and the invasion of Iraq for the neoconservatives. Still, there are good reasons that, in a few years, some on the right might look on a John Kerry victory as a blessing in disguise.
First, President Bush hasn't been as conservative as some would like. Small-government types fume that he has increased discretionary government spending faster than Bill Clinton. Buchananite paleoconservatives, libertarians, and Nelson Rockefeller-style internationalists are all furious - for very different reasons - about Bush's "war of choice" in Iraq. Even some neocons are irritated by his conduct of that war - particularly his failure to supply enough troops to make the enterprise work.
A second reason conservatives might cheer a Bush defeat is to achieve a foreign-policy victory. The Bush foreign-policy team hardly lacks experience, but its reputation has been tainted - by infighting, bungling in Iraq, and the rows with Europe. For better or worse, many conservatives may conclude that Senator Kerry, who has accepted most of the tenets of Bush's policy of preemption, stands a better chance than Bush of increasing international involvement in Iraq, winning support for Washington's general war on terror, and even forcing UN reform. After all, could Jacques, Gerhard, and the rest of those wimpy Continentals say no to a man who speaks fluent French and German and has just rid the world of the Toxic Texan?
The third reason for the right to celebrate a Bush loss comes in one simple word: gridlock. Gridlock is a godsend to some conservatives - a proven way to stop government spending. A Kerry administration is much more likely to be gridlocked than a second Bush administration because the Republicans look sure to hang on to the House and have a better-than-even chance of keeping control of the Senate.
A fourth reason has to do with regeneration. Some conservatives think the Republican Party - and the wider conservative movement - needs to rediscover its identity. Is it a "small government" party, or does "big government conservatism" make sense? Is it the party of big business or of free markets? Under Bush, Western antigovernment conservatives have generally lost ground to Southern social conservatives, and pragmatic internationalists have been outmaneuvered by neoconservative idealists. A period of bloodletting might help, returning a stronger party to the fray.
And that is the fifth reason a few conservatives might welcome a November Bush-bashing: the certain belief that they will be back, better than ever, in 2008. The conservative movement has an impressive record of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Ford's demise indeed helped to power the Reagan landslide; "Poppy" Bush's defeat set up the Gingrich revolution. In four years, many conservatives believe, President Kerry could limp to destruction at the hands of somebody like Colorado Gov. Bill Owens. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0812/p09s02-coop.htm
Digging for African Oil: The Competition Heats Up:
The U.S. and France are competing for oil in North and West Africa; most of these regimes are “undemocratic.”
France and the United States have begun a new race to compete for favours with undemocratic regimes in Africa. The competition is growing particularly in the oil- rich North and West Africa. The French government announced last month that it is due to sign a military pact with former colony Algeria that would include weapons and technology transfer, training and intelligence sharing. The agreement was negotiated by French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie on a visit to Algiers July 19. Alliot-Marie, the first French defence minister to visit Algeria since the end of the bloody war of independence in 1962, said the "historic" agreement will "turn a page" in French-Algerian history. Foreign minister Michel Barnier visited Algiers earlier in July to discuss new cooperation. Finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy followed his colleagues later in the month to approve a 2.5 billion dollar aid package. France has invited Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to commemoration of the liberation of south France from Nazi occupation in 1944, in the face of protests from French veterans of the war of independence. Analysts say these moves seek to secure access to Algerian oil and gas resources to counter similar efforts by the U.S. government. http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=25032
Polls: In sum, Gore’s states that are shaky are Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Bush’s 2000 states that are, to varying degrees, ‘up for grabs’ are Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and New Hampshire, the latter (and Florida) currently leaning to Kerry.
But, it’s only August.
Let me put it to you bluntly: In a changing world, we want more people to have control over your own life." -- Bush at an "Ask President Bush" event on August 9.
-R
